They were at the peak of Ben Massan, a short but steep climb. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed, her hair blowing in wild, fiery tendrils around her face. She wore an old mackintosh coat that was far too large for her, the sleeves turned up to form a cuff, the hem flapping around her ankles. On her feet were sturdy brown brogues, much worn and eminently practical.
‘Spectacular, but not as pretty as you,’ Geraint said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hard.
Laughing, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Her lips were cold, but her tongue was warm. She kissed him back as fiercely as he kissed her. He felt the familiar rush of blood to his groin and reluctantly let her go.
‘Why do you do that?’ Flora was staring up at him, her expression hurt. ‘Stop kissing me, I mean. Don’t you like kissing me?’
It hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t understand. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Geraint said, putting his arm around her, pulling her onto the soft, peaty ground in the lea of the cairn that marked the summit. ‘It’s because I like it too much.’ He cupped her face, smoothing her hair away from her cheeks. ‘Flora, it’s all very well to joke about being in no man’s land, to talk about seizing the day, but we have to be careful. We have to see this for what it is, a bit of fun.’
‘Fun.’ She said it as if she were turning the word over, inspecting it from every angle. ‘What you really mean is that there’s no future in it. I already know that, Geraint. There is no need to warn me off.’
But there seemed to be a need to remind himself of that salient fact. ‘When the war is over, I intend to go into politics,’ he said. ‘Things need to change for the better for ordinary working people.’
She smiled wryly. ‘You mean we shall end up on opposite sides again.’
‘Something like that.’
‘And because of that you don’t want to take advantage of the situation,’ she said with a crooked smile. ‘I know,’ she said, putting her fingers over his mouth to prevent him replying, ‘that the idea of being called a gentleman appals you, but nevertheless, your sense of honour would put a lot of so-called gentlemen to shame. And I suppose I should be embarrassed now, for I have admitted to a very unladylike wish that you would not behave so very honourably.’
‘Which I am delighted to hear,’ Geraint said with a gruff laugh, ‘because behaving honourably is just about killing me.’ He pulled her to him, running his thumb over the soft, sensual skin of her lower lip. ‘The things I imagine us doing together would make you blush to the roots of your hair.’
She caught his hand, closing her mouth around his thumb, pulling it into the moist heat of her mouth before releasing him. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Certainly not. That would be most ungentlemanly.’
‘I already told you that I feel most unladylike. Please tell me, Geraint. I know we cannot, but I would like to know what it would be like if we could.’
She was smiling, one of those smiles that did strange things to his guts, and he thought he had never found any woman more irresistible. In the throes of passion, he had been able to ask—Do you like this? Do you want this? Harder? Slower? Faster?—but he had never before articulated his own desires. I want to know what it would be like if we could. He pulled Flora closer to him out of the wind, resting his chin on the silky mass of her hair. ‘The reality could never match my imaginings,’ he said, willing himself to believe it.
‘I would still like to know.’
She had slipped her arms under his greatcoat, wrapping them around his waist. Geraint closed his eyes, drinking in the scent of her perfume, her soap, the fresh Highland air and the intangible something else that made the heady mixture uniquely Flora. ‘When we kiss,’ he whispered, ‘I feel like I am diving into a deep, dark pool. And the more we kiss the deeper I want to dive.’ His fingers found the warm, delicate skin at the nape of her neck. ‘I want to touch you. All of you. I want to taste you, every part of you.’
Flora shuddered. He pulled her closer so that she lay half over him, her leg between his. ‘I want to kiss your mouth,’ he said, unable to stop himself doing just that. ‘I want to kiss your breasts.’ He undid her coat, cupping her through the soft wool of her dress. She rolled onto her back. He covered her with his body. ‘I want to kiss your breasts until you can’t take any more,’ he said, his voice ragged, his thumbs stroking her nipples.
Flora arched under him, her eyes glazing over. ‘What else, Geraint? What else would you do?’
He was already hard. ‘I would kiss your belly.’ He flattened his palm, sliding it over her. ‘I would kiss the inside of your thighs. Soft, your skin would be. So soft and so warm. When I kiss you there, I can feel you want me, feel it here,’ he said, pressing down on the taut muscles of her stomach, then farther down. ‘I want you every bit as much, but I don’t want it to be over too soon, so I touch you. Here.’ Flat palm gliding over her sex. Flora’s hands on him, clutching at his tunic. Her eyes wide, dark, her cheeks bright with colour. Her breath shallow, fast. ‘I have never wanted anyone as I want you,’ he whispered.
‘Never. Not ever,’ she answered.
‘I want to taste you. Here. This. I want to taste all of you.’ The words, shocking, stark, raw with need, formed without thinking. He touched her, just covered her, through her dress, and felt her arch up under him just as he had dreamed. ‘I taste you,’ Geraint said, his eyes fixed on hers, stroking now, just stroking, ‘and I kiss you. Here. Like this.’
Her mouth under his. Her lips soft, velvet, clinging. Tongues tangling. His erection throbbed. She bucked under him, moaning softly as he kissed her, as he touched her until she shuddered. She was going to come. He saw it in the faraway look, felt it in the way her body reacted. And if he did not stop...
He rolled abruptly away, closing his eyes tight, thinking of cold snow, of army drill, and when that did not work, of the cramped recesses of the mine workings. Sweat of a different sort broke out on his brow, and the danger passed.
Flora sat up, pulling her coat around her, feeling as if she had been caught, yanked back at the last moment from falling. No, it was more like a dream where she fell and fell, and woke up just before she hit the ground. Beside her, Geraint had his eyes screwed shut. She stared down into the glen at her home. Her former home.
Geraint got to his feet, holding his hand out to help her up. ‘Well, I think that rather proved the point,’ he said shakily.
‘That reality is no match for your imaginings?’ she asked, still keeping her eyes on the view.
‘I think we had better stop this before we get in too deep.’
She turned to face him. His mouth was set, resolute. Before we get in too deep. It would pain him to know it was already too late. It would be painful for her, much more painful, if she let herself fall any deeper. ‘You’re right,’ she said, summoning a bright smile and rummaging in her capacious coat pocket for her notebook. ‘We should concentrate on what we came up here for before the light fades. Tell me, then, which parts of the grounds do you think best suited for target practice.’
* * *
‘So, given the two new sections that have arrived, and with the main body of men due on the seventh of December, which is next week, we felt it prudent to establish a regular patrol in the village.’
Flora glanced up from her notes at her parents, who were seated opposite her at the dining table in the Lodge. She would have held the meeting in the parlour over tea. She would not have called it a meeting, but a chat. It was Geraint who insisted she formalise matters. ‘Else they will not take you seriously,’ he had told her. ‘You need to stamp your authority on this, make them realise that the decisions are already made, and not up for discussion.’
‘Wouldn’t